


Lost and Found at the Creepy Carnival

by VaderzGirl



Series: Welcome to the Carnival (Discord W-T prompt) [1]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: #wayhaven-talk #creepingcarnival, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 01:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17274194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VaderzGirl/pseuds/VaderzGirl
Summary: This is a response to the 'Creeping Carnival' prompt on the Wayhaven-Talk channel on Discord. Dezh has to trounce through a haunted house at the carnival. She thinks such things are ridiculous, but it might be creepier than she thought...





	Lost and Found at the Creepy Carnival

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically G-rated except for Dezh's potty mouth.

**_Lost and Found at the Creepy Carnival_**  
  
Dezh listened with a blank face as a group of parents ranted and raved about their ‘missing’ teenaged children. Certainly, the parents had to realize their behavior was irrational, but the thing with Murphy had instilled an ever-so-slight sense of caution into a scant few residents. With regards to their children, anyway. Still, the four teens had only been missing for a couple of hours. Most than likely, they were making out somewhere. A good idea, as far as she was concerned. If only Mason were there.  
  
Her gaze drifted to one of the fathers, who was babbling about the dangers of the stupid carnival. Including food safety. Seriously? Dezh rolled her eyes—it figured people were more worried about getting food poisoning from fried candy than the illness plaguing the town. “…and now with the power out—”  
  
“Where were they seen last?” Dezh interrupted. The discussion was going nowhere and talk was cheap. This demanded action. Plus, the only way she’d get away from the bloody carnival tonight was by finding these stupid kids.  
  
“We’ve checked all the rides,” one of the carnival’s security guards offered, scratching his head. For some reason, the man’s empty-headed stare reminded her of Douglas. “With the power out, it’s hard to search anywhere else. We yelled into the buildings, but got no response.”  
  
Dezh stared at him for a few moments, barely resisting the urge to smack him. _This_ was the carnival’s security? A pack of M&Ms would’ve been more effective than this dolt. “Do you have a bloody flashlight?” she snapped.  
  
Recoiling a bit, the idiot pulled a tiny flashlight from his pocket and held it out to her. “You realize the buildings are pitch black inside, right? No windows, so with the power out—”  
  
“Yeah,” she said dryly, taking the flashlight from him, “it’s dark. I get it.”  
  
“Maybe you could start here,” one of the mothers offered, gesturing to the nearby building. The haunted maze house, or as the carnies had named it, ‘The Maze of Horrors and Death.’ Sighing, Dezh rolled her eyes. As if naming it that would actually make it scary? Haunted houses were a bloody joke. “When we came here the other night, they spent almost an hour in there. I have no idea what could’ve held their interest that long!”  
  
Dezh barked a laugh, not surprised when she received a number of glares. Were these people that clueless? Did they not remember being a teenager? Thoughts of her high school experiences soured her expression quickly. “Whatever,” she muttered, turning toward the building. With any luck, her quarry would be in there and save her the aggravation of searching elsewhere to find them.  
  
Ignoring the chattering behind her—did someone just _seriously_ tell her to be careful?—she walked up the rickety wooden stairs, shoved the door open, and stepped inside. Chilled air swept over her body as the door bounced against the wall, sounding so hollow she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had crumbled to dust. The hinges squeaked loudly when the door continued to slam back and forth, the noise slowly growing quieter until the it finally remained closed behind her.  
  
“Hey,” she yelled out, her voice echoing through the building, “is anyone in here?” Silence was her only response.  
  
Stalking through the dense fog, Dezh glared into the darkness and flipped on the dinky flashlight the security guard had given her. The dim yellowish light did little to help. Why the hell would you put a fog machine in a bloody maze, anyway? The place was dark enough, already. “Ugh,” she muttered to herself as she spotted the creepy-looking dolls with wide-eyed stares scattered in the cubby holes decorating the walls of the entryway. Those things were far more disturbing than the fake blood streaks on the walls and ceiling, and it took a great deal of self-control to resist the urge to smash them all into pieces. Why did people like this crap? Well, at least the place didn’t smell bad. The faint scent of marigolds tickled her nose. A pleasing scent, even if it was more than a little odd.  
  
With a sigh, she shined the dim light around the room in an effort to find the correct path. There were four different doorways, one of which apparently led to a mirrored room, judging by the way the light reflected back into her eyes. She decided to avoid that one—there were way too many things to break in there. To make things simple, she headed through the left doorway.  
  
The fog was so thick, Dezh couldn’t see past her nose, even with the flashlight. She considered using her phone’s light, but the battery was likely dead by now. How many years had she had a damned cell phone? And she _still_ forgot to keep it charged half the time? Maybe it would’ve kept a charge longer if the damned thing wasn’t constantly going off.  
  
Her lips curled into a sneer when she reached a room full of foam gravestones with stupid sayings on them. Of course, there were skeletons. And what appeared to be poorly-designed zombies. “Anyone in here?” she asked. Again, no response. So, left with no other choice, she soldiered on through the stupid maze.  
  
Three rooms later, Dezh’s boredom had turned to annoyance. If this bloody horror maze cost extra, people should’ve demanded their money back and beaten the people who charged them into a pulp. Between the werewolf room—filled with ridiculously tall mannequins covered in cheap fuzzy material and big teeth that fell out of their mouths when you failed to walk lightly near them—and the weird room full of black and white squares that looked too small to pass through, she’d had enough. Opening the only door that led her out of a squishy-floored room with blood-splattered walls, she stopped in her tracks. Coffins?  
  
Curiosity got the better of her, so she walked to the far side of the room. Something under her foot gave way and one of the coffins popped open. A figure sprung up, its bony arms lifting as though ready to attack her. Dezh burst into laughter as her flashlight fell upon the thing’s face. It made for an ugly sight, with two long fangs sticking out past its chin. The figure’s sunken in cheeks and deathly white skin were too much. This is what they thought vampires looked like? Morons! They’d have been better off using the hottest, most perfectly-sculpted models they could find as the basis for their vampires, though she supposed that wouldn’t have been very scary, either. She could imagine Mason and Adam’s constipated expressions if she told them they weren’t scary. Or showed them this room. That just made her laugh more.  
  
She entered and left four more rooms, beginning to wonder if she was lost. There had been stairs somewhere farther back, but the damned place was so dark and repetitive, it was difficult to tell where the hell she was or if she’d already been there, especially considering the flashlight had started flickering almost continuously.  
  
Finally, she came upon another set of stairs that led down an entire level. How had they managed to add a basement to the place? Certainly, they hadn’t taken that much time to set up the carnival. Shrugging, she headed down the stairs and through the door at the bottom.  
  
The flashlight flickered as she scanned the room with it. It clearly wasn’t part of the haunted house, given all the crap scattered near the walls. Just a storage room, if she had to bet. She called out again, to no avail, not that it surprised her. But, when she took a few more steps into the room, a clicking sound made her turn back toward the now-closed door. Had she shut it and not realized it?  
  
Frowning, she moved back to the door and reached out to turn the handle. She let out a slow breath, coldness spreading like icy fire through her bones. She was _not_ locked in here. It just wasn’t possible. So, calmly, she turned the handle again. Or, she tried to turn it. It was, indeed, locked.  
  
A wave of nausea swept over her, causing bile to rise in her throat. She wasn’t trapped. Just because the door was locked, it didn’t mean she was trapped. She shook the handle, but the door didn’t budge. Her gaze swept the rest of the room, which seemed to be growing smaller by the moment. Smaller and with less oxygen. There was no airflow down here. None at all. It felt like she was trying to breathe through sand.  
  
As though mocking her, the flashlight flickered again. Once. Twice. And then, it went out, leaving her in complete darkness. “Oh, fuck this,” she growled, slamming the flashlight into the door. It flickered again, the light dimmer than before. She had to get the hell out of there.  
  
She stuck her hand into one of her pockets, silently cursing Mason’s recent suggestion she should wear skirts, as well as her decision to do so. Unlike her cargo pants, the bloody thing only had two pockets, so she’d had no room to carry her usual laundry list of items. No lockpicks, just a stupid hairpin. A dagger in her boot. A small throwing knife stuck in the back of her skirt. A couple of shuriken in her other boot. Dammit, why hadn’t she stuck a lockpick in her pocket? She let out a string of curses that would’ve made Nate blush.  
  
Crouching, she stuck the dark end of the flashlight in her mouth and tried to pick the lock. Her hands shook, for some reason. And her heart beat so fast it was a wonder it didn’t burst out of her chest. “I’m not trapped,” she muttered to herself. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the hairpin snapped and the flashlight went out. For a few scant seconds, Dezh remained frozen. Then, she beat the flashlight into the door again. It did nothing, so she did it harder, accenting each of her words with the pounding of the offending object into the door. “Son of a fucking bitch!”  
  
Plastic and metal shattered from the impact, pieces falling between her fingers to the floor. Something stuck in her finger, so she yanked it out and threw it across the room. Into the dark abyss. Dezh tried to breathe, feeling as though her lungs were collapsing. She closed her eyes and tried to still her mind. Okay, there was more than one way to get through a door, right? Before she could answer her own question, she felt something sweep over her arm. Something light and fast. Oh, gods, if there were insects in this place…  
  
Nope. She was getting out of here. Stepping back, she slammed her foot into the door as hard as she was capable. Then, did it again. Pain radiated up her leg, into her hip, but the sound her kicks created made her heart sink. Who in ten layers of hell put a metal door in a freaking temporary haunted house?  
  
Her breath came in rapid spurts as she tried to gulp down air. She stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over something. But what? There was nothing there before, was there? Ugh, she had to get out of there. Her phone. Yeah, her phone had light. With more force than was necessary, she jerked it out of her skirt pocket and pushed the button. Nothing happened. Of course. “Fucking battery,” she growled, barely resisting the urge to break her phone and leave its pieces lying next to what was left of the flashlight.  
  
Turning, she let out a strained chuckle. She didn’t even know which way she faced now. “Shit,” she hissed, holding her arm out and taking several steps. She needed to find a wall. The door. Anything.  
  
Her hand found a splintered surface. A wall, probably. What was on the other side? Not thinking, she kicked it hard. Then again. It didn’t budge. That feeling she so hated began to rise within her, making her wish she was anywhere else. At the fight club. In her shitty car. Anywhere, but there. Despite not being able to see anything, she felt the walls close in on her. Crushing her. Suffocating her. Every muscle tensed. There were no windows. She couldn’t get out the door. Hell, she couldn’t _see_ the door.  
  
A pathetic whimper escaped her lips before she could stop it. She felt too out of control. Too… Without thinking, she rammed her thumbnail into her palm so hard she could feel a tiny trickle of blood bubble to the surface. It calmed her slightly. She just had to…  
  
Suddenly, a ray of light burst into the room, causing her to recoil. But her heart leapt back into her chest. The door was open.  
  
“What the hell are you doing down here, sweetheart?” a familiar, snarky voice called out.  
  
Dezh spun, exhaling sharply as relief flooded through her. “Mason,” she breathed, running at him and jumping onto him on impulse.  
  
He caught her with a grunt, arms wrapping around her to press her tightly against him. Something big and hard dug into her back, making her cut her eyes to identify it. The flashlight. Where did he get such a big one? “How long were you in here?”  
  
Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. “I don’t know,” she finally grunted, barely holding back a complaint when he set her on her feet. “I don’t like closed-up places.”  
  
He nodded, his gaze dropping to the floor. “What’s that?”  
  
“Flashlight.” She shrugged. “Battery died.” His amused smirk made her want to smack him. “I tried to beat the door open with it, all right?”  
  
He laughed at that. Not just a chuckle, but genuine laughter. It made her smile, too. “They found the brats they said were lost. They were snogging behind one of the other buildings.”  
  
“Of course they were,” she said, rolling her eyes. She started to step past him, but he caught her arm.  
  
“Power’s still out,” he purred, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip in that way that made her want to do it for him. “We could make use of it…”  
  
Desire for him warred with the desire to be free of this bloody haunted house. And out of this room. One easily won over the others. Mostly, anyway. “Sounds good to me, just not in here. Let’s go upstairs. I know just the room.” She grinned as she started up the steps, Mason on her heels as he shined the flashlight in front of them so she wouldn’t break her bloody neck. Seeing his reaction to the vampire room would be amusing, to say the least. If she could find it again. Or if they made it that far.  
  
By the time the power came on and they finally found their way outside, Dezh had only one thought—maybe haunted houses weren’t so bad, after all.  
  



End file.
